Deuteronomy 4:29

SO it's been a long time since i've written a blog! My apologies. It definitely does not mean that nothing is happening- but just the opposite. God has been teaching me so much..i definitely won't be able to put every single thing into this entry. The second week of lectures was on the Father Heart of God. It was an amazing and emotional week- learning a lot about who God really is. I didn't know He had so many different sides of Him!! Michelle, our amazing speaker that we were blessed with for that week, challenged us to:

 -surrender everything that we were holding on to and putting before God
 -make sure our desire and longing was completely to know God and NOT just to know the bare minimum that the average christian settles for, to know just enough to get into heaven, and to just do enough to escape hell.
-to renew our LONGING for God

She told us about the raging side of God, but she really emphasized how much he LOVES us. I always heard this over and over in church and at school but it only is hitting me now. No matter how many times i've turned away from Him God has still pursued me. We always think that our sin separates us from Him, and in a way it does, but it doesn't mean that God is there with us. He's still there waiting for us to turn back to Him.

During Evangelism night two Fridays ago- I was pretty much freaking out. I've never been on a missions trip, never had to witness to someone. I had the mindset that I didn't need to do anything that night- that everyone else would take care of it. But that was not the case. After having a few normal conversations with people my group decided to follow an ambulance in the city and go pray for the situation. A man had a heart attack and we arrived right when the medical teams came and a lot of the YWAM groups were also there praying for him. But a few minutes later God decided that it was the mans time to pass. It was a pretty emotional night for all of us seeing this happen- but we know God's doing something with what happened. In the meantime I got to talk to an older man Jose. He just asked if I knew the man in any way and we got to talking for awhile!  I got to tell him a little about what I was doing in Brisbane and he did too- he was there for heart treatment. I asked if I could pray for him. He kept saying that I only asked so that I would feel better about myself. It was kind of funny how he kept repeating that but I convinced him otherwise, and he let me and my friend Paige pray for him. As soon as we finished he said "My heart is happy now!" Then he hugged and kissed me on the cheek and left. That made my night. I didn't even expect to talk to anyone that night but God placed Jose right there next to me on that bench. He told me what to say and it made loving people and just talking to people so easy. "God's perfect love drives out fear."

Deuteronomy 4:29- " If you seek Me with all your heart, you will find Me." This verse pretty much sums up last weeks lectures: "Hearing the Voice of God." I've been learning so much about how God is speaking ALL THE TIME. Were just not listening. He wants to tell us so much-and it's up to us just to LISTEN to what He wants to say!

THAT is what I was figuring out when I heard where God wanted me to go on outreach for 2 months! It was during lectures last week. We were just sitting there praying alone and listening to a song when I saw a picture in my head of something specific (that i'll tell everyone later...i don't want to give it away). I knew I couldn't have just randomly thought of that. I felt like it was a dream but I was definitely awake. I had never experienced hearing God like that before and I was so excited to tell my roomies and leaders. Later that day I looked up all of the 5 locations on Google images- and what do you know. THE PICTURE I SAW CAME UP ON GOOGLE FOR WHERE I WANTED TO GO TO. God is crazy. God is crazy good. And then if that wasn't enough to know where God wanted me to go- he confirmed it the day before we were supposed to hand in our first choice.

Something else Jason taught us during "Hearing the Voice of God" week, was how bad of a friend we are to God! If we put God on a human level- think about how many times we've ignored Him, insulted Him,  didn't listen to Him, and told Him to prove himself to us! That hit us all pretty hard- and Jason had us all laughing because it's so true. We order God around and tell him what to do, and when. As if God doesn't know best.

I've been learning a lot about hearing God, trusting Him with EVERYTHING, and learning what it means to be willing to give everything to God. "God never asks you to give Him something, without replacing it with something better." So that's a basic summary of what I've been learning from the lectures and on my own. 

On a less serious note...the heat has been a killer. It was freezing on the night all of us went to the city- we had scarves, gloves, boots, pants, and coats on! And now these days are SCORCHING. It's not even official summer yet...oh boy.

Friday we had a dress up birthday party for all of the september/october birthdays! The theme was what we wanted to be when we grew up. There was food, lots and lots of dancing, and pictures. It was a really fun time especially after the stress of the week. Then Saturday a lot of us helped take pictures/drew portraits/performed at the high school Medieval Fest. It was a lot of fun to see all of the creativity but it also was super hot. And yesterday a lot of people went to another fair- but the people that didn't just stayed at the base. It was relaxing to have a small group of people here and to get all of our homework done. (it was a good 3 hours worth).

That's pretty much it...WE'RE EITHER FINDING OUT OUTREACHES TONIGHT OR TOMORROW. I'm very excited and nervous to find out our teams and leaders. It's been hard keeping it a secret haha. 

Thank you everyone for reading, and thank you for your prayers. I miss you all! :)

First week of lectures!

Today is finally Thursday! Which means that classes, intercessions, and lectures have been going on for 4 days. I have been SO OVERWHELMED. But in a great way :) Seriously everything that our leader/base director Hannah Lenz has said has struck me. The lecture week is called "The Character and Nature of God." I seriously did not know that there was this much to know about God! I was so intrigued with every word that God spoke through her. I was feeling so drained and bored and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. After Hannah's lecture and my friend Paige coming over to pray for me I knew what was getting in the way from me believing in Him fully. And finally knowing what it was  was so freeing. I could then praise God and I was so excited to learn even MORE. It's crazy how I'm slowly figuring out that all of the things I didn't believe in, like healing and asking God for big things and believing He will do it, is REAL. I didn't give God enough credit before at all.
       Anyways, our focus groups- (photography, art, dance, music) met on monday for the first time. We are also meeting today. I love it already! There are only 4 photographers but that means that our two awesome leaders will get to do their own thing but also get to assist us. We have a few projects to complete this DTS. The first one is on God's promises, so the artists are drawing and painting what God's promises mean to them- and the photographers get to go out and take pictures of their perspective of it.
     So this weekend a group of us are planning to go to the BEACH! After a long weekend of orientations and lectures we are hoping and praying that our student cards will be ready to go! (so we can travel cheaper).
     This is a shorter blog but I'm still getting used to being so busy (with awesome things of course). I can't say enough how grateful I am to be here- but prayers are definitely still appreciated! Miss you all!